


The Unlikely Wingman

by Sineala



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Cap's Kooky Quartet, Cap-Ironman Bingo, Community: cap_ironman, Fluff, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:57:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint doesn't see why he should have to follow Captain America's orders. But he also doesn't see why Captain America should have to sit around looking miserably lonely, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unlikely Wingman

**Author's Note:**

> For my Cap/IM bingo card, the square "writing format: outsider POV." Time for some Kooky Quartet-era Clint Barton.
> 
> Thanks to magicasen for looking this over!

When Clint had wanted to do good, clear his name, and join the Avengers, he hadn't been expecting this. Oh, he'd heard of the team. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Giant-Man, and Wasp -- heroes who might be open to recruiting a new member. They'd recruited Captain America, after all. The Fantastic Four were a family, so that was a no-go, and he didn't meet the X-Men's minimum standards -- that, and people were still looking askance at mutants. Not that he had anything against them, mind you. He just wasn't one.

So he'd been expecting, once he'd performed his carefully-prepared, impressively daring feat -- tying up the butler and then shooting the ropes off him, a trick shot he could make (and had made) with his eyes shut -- that he'd slot right into the existing team.

Instead Iron Man had handed him a stack of team bylaws and told him that everyone who wasn't Captain America was going on vacation. Welcome to the Avengers.

Well. That was different.

Clint had watched in amazement as the rest of the Avengers recruited two more heroes, fresh from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and he no longer felt quite so bad about daring to be an Avenger, with his own history. A team of former criminals... and Captain America.

Clint had to do a book report on Captain America in third grade. He got a C-. And it wasn't that he didn't respect the guy -- because, really, Captain America -- but he just didn't see why everyone had to bow down before him just because he covered himself in the flag.

Okay, so maybe Clint had issues with authority.

Captain America got back from South America about half an hour before the old Avengers were due to announce the new team, and no one had told him. Clint felt a little bad for the guy even as he was wondering how the man could waltz in here and just declare himself team leader. He was a relic from the war! He didn't have any powers! Surely any of them ought to have an equal chance. New team, new leader.

At any rate, now they're here.

It's their second night alone in the mansion. The old team's moved out, and it's him and Captain America and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch just rattling around this creaky old place. And the butler, who's still pissed at Clint. Maybe tying him up was a bad move.

He can hear the faint blare of the television in the other room; a circus show is on. It's apparently one of Quicksilver's favorite things. Clint had just grinned and shut up and left the room before he could start pointing out everything he would have done differently. No sense in antagonizing all of his new teammates.

So now he's here, in the library, and Captain America's been reading the same damn page of his book for twenty minutes.

Clint squints. Captain America's book is _upside-down_.

Captain America sighs and looks up from his book and for a second he just looks so horribly sad that Clint wants to take back all the uncomplimentary thoughts he's ever had.

Clint puts down his own book. "Are you all right, Cap?"

Captain America sighs again. "I'm fine, Hawkeye. I'm just... lonely, I suppose."

Clint knows all about this. That C- book report did cover the basic facts, after all. "It's Bucky Barnes, right?"

"Sort of." The captain's mouth twists. "I swore vengeance on the man who was responsible for his death, and he-- he died, when I was fighting him in South America. I didn't kill him, but he died anyway."

"Oh." After a few moments, Clint ventures, "So that's done? But you miss him, anyway?"

"I miss him," Captain America says. "I don't think I'll ever stop missing him. But now I find I'm missing... someone else who isn't here. And I keep wondering if it's... disloyal, somehow... to miss someone else. And I know I could talk to them. They're not dead. But maybe they don't want to hear from me, you know?"

Ah. Woman trouble. Clint knows all about that, the way he's been pining after the Black Widow. It strikes a chord of empathy deep within him. Everyone should get to be happy in love, even if they've been frozen since 1945 and are an old fossil who shouldn't automatically be team leader. "Of course she wants to talk to you," Clint says. "Who wouldn't?"

"It's not a woman," the captain says, and the words seem to hang in the air after he's said them, and Clint's not sure if Captain America means that the way it sounds. Well, there's a thing that never made it into the history books. "It's-- it's Iron Man."

Clint's seen the two of them together exactly once, and that was yesterday. He remembers the agonized sadness on the captain's face, the way he held Iron Man by the shoulders and begged him not to go. He remembers the same look in Iron Man's eyes, behind the mask.

He thinks there's something there that's beyond regular friendship. Beyond any kind of ordinary relationship, maybe.

"You should definitely call him," Clint says, because he gives the best advice.

"I can't just call him," Captain America says, almost frantic, like he's talking about asking Iron Man out, and, yeah, he's got it bad. "What would I say?"

"Anything! Whatever!" Clint spreads his hands wide, and then an idea occurs to him. "Tell him Hawkeye's ruined a table that's probably priceless and you can't believe the kind of teammates he's gone and stuck you with."

"What?" Captain America blinks. "You ruined a table?"

Clint reaches back, grabs three arrows out of his quiver, and stabs them right into the polished dark hardwood of the library table.

Speechless, Captain America stares at him.

"There," Clint says. "Conversation starter. You can thank me later."

He gets up and leaves as Captain America heads to the phone. Some conversations should be private.

In the morning, the three arrows are stuck in Clint's bedroom door, pinning up a note that says _thank you_.

And when Clint pulls the curtain back and looks out the window, he sees Captain America standing just inside the front gates of the mansion grounds, embracing Iron Man. The morning sunlight gleams off red and gold armor, off blue scale mail.

Clint smiles and lets the curtain fall. It's a job well done.

**Author's Note:**

> You like this fic? It's got its own [tumblr post](http://sineala.tumblr.com/post/141418559759/fic-the-unlikely-wingman)!


End file.
